The National Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds earlier this month held its annual convention in Kansas City, at which its most prominently headlined action was to rebrand itself as the Outdoor Hospitality Industry, or OHI. Quite overshadowed by that announcement, and lost in the typically tepid shuffle of self-promoting panels and lectures, was a ground-breaking presentation by Michael Scheinman, CEO of Campspot—underscoring, yet again, that this is not an industry given to self-examination.
“Navigating the Camping-Hotel Crossover: Lessons for Success in Outdoor Hospitality,” if Campspot’s subsequent press release is to be believed, played to a standing-room only crowd. But the industry’s primary “news” outlet, Woodall’s Campground Magazine, couldn’t be bothered to provide more than a sketchy three-paragraph summary—although, to be fair, it did link to Scheinman’s white paper, so at least it can be read online [registration with Campspot required]. Other campground-oriented media, however, pretty much gave the presentation a pass.
That’s what happens when you swim against the current, even obliquely.
Scheinman’s apostasy was to challenge industry group-think by asking an obvious question, “Why are campgrounds increasingly considering hotel best practices?” As he summarized in an opening statement, the industry’s uncritical embrace of hotel industry tactics and tools “can lead to poor guest experience, sub-optimal revenue optimization and costly and unnecessary investments”—not exactly what a convention full of vested interests devoted to selling hotel industry tactics and tools wants to hear. Little wonder, then, that Scheinman’s tossed pebble sank beneath the pond’s surface with scarcely a ripple.
Long-time campers and RVers are well aware of this trend, which began in earnest with the pandemic but can trace its roots to the turn of the century, when a hotel and casino executive was tapped to become president and chief executive of the industry’s largest campground chain. As Jim Rogers told Forbes magazine a decade after assuming KOA’s leadership mantle, “the casino business is so cutting edge and the camping industry is so ‘back of the woods’ ” that he was having a lot of fun making the latter look a lot more like the former. Among his many transformative initiatives, for instance, was a full-court press to add cabins—many, many cabins—to RV parks, which Rogers explained “are just like a suite in a hotel except the interior is all wood.”
That myopic outlook has become even more prevalent today, Scheinman observed, thanks to the pandemic-driven flood of institutionally-backed investors looking for a more stable alternative to the volatile hotel-asset class. As those investors applied their hotel experience to their campground acquisitions, a similarly pandemic-driven class of new customers flocking to this alternative form of lodging brought expectations based on their experiences with hotel and vacation rentals. Meanwhile, hotel-focused managers, consultants and software vendors also piled into this “new” business opportunity, but in doing so “often needed to convince campground operators that they were ‘missing out’ when neglecting key tactics and tools used in hotels”—as good a description as any of most OHI convention content.
This perfect three-way storm of hotel-oriented pressure to change traditional campground culture and practices has been augmented by technology, which provides campground owners with labor savings while creating opportunities for new revenue streams. But as Scheinman wrote, “given the relative dearth of campground-specific software related to point of sale, loyalty, customer relationship management, accounting, and others, they were led to hotel-centric solutions.” In short, there now exists a hotel-based feedback loop that has pushed the campground industry out of Jim Rogers’ “back of the woods” to the front of the line, although that line may not be one you want to be in.
For campers, the application of hotel-centric solutions to campgrounds has meant significantly higher rates and add-on costs, less face-time with a shrinking number of campground employees and an ongoing shift in the ratio of RV sites to various forms of lodging. It also, arguably, has resulted in a shifting ratio between “nature” and physical comfort as fundamental aspects of the camping experience, requiring that nature’s less comfortable aspects be minimized, if not eradicated: more outdoor lighting, more paved surfaces, more hard-sided shelters, and so on. And as nature gets pushed to the periphery, a compensatory emphasis on “amenities” takes its place, from wifi to golf car rentals to organized programs such as movie nights or kids’ activities.
These developments, although widely discussed in campers’ forums, are largely unexamined by the campground industry itself, which continues lurching in a direction largely defined by the newcomers. Indeed, it’s notable that to the extent a spotlight has been trained on the subject, it’s being shined by a graduate of the Cornell School of Hotel Administration, alma mater of a significant number of the new campground investors. Nor is Scheinman a disinterested observer, as much of his white paper’s conclusions lead to an explanation of why Campspot is ideally positioned to provide campground-specific—rather than hotel-centric—services that meet the industry’s unique needs. In that respect, Scheinman’s presentation was only a more sophisticated version of the usual self-serving OHI fare.
But self-serving or not, Scheinman dared raise questions that the RV park industry would benefit from considering. A little bit of critical thinking and discussion would go a long way in disrupting the relentless promotion of campground “modernization” —which, of course, explains why Scheinman’s white paper has received so little attention. And while his “solution” may be to Campspot’s advantage, that doesn’t make his observations less trenchant or the problems he highlights any less urgent.
Renting Dirt 